Whether you are already working with a social media consultant on your LinkedIn, Facebook and/or Twitter account or you are looking to hire someone to manage your social media marketing efforts – you need to know how to manage the person or team you choose.
If you want to achieve maximum results and a higher ROI, then you can’t just let your social media consultant run a muck. It’s you and your brand they are promoting. It is your reputation at stake. You need to take a more active role in your social media marketing efforts.
Start with following the 8 tips I provide below that will help you develop a stronger relationship with your social media consultant so they can market you more effectively. These are the same tips that we give our clients when they invest in our monthly ongoing LinkedIn marketing program.
8 Tips to Help You Achieve Better Results and ROI from Your Social Media Consultant
Tip #1: Give your social media consultant or service provider as much information about you, your targeted audience, your business and its goals and needs.
I have a questionnaire that I developed to help me learn as much as possible about my new clients. I ask a series of questions designed to get as much information out of them as I can get. There are questions about their business, their targeted audience, their business goals and needs. The answers give me a better understanding of what type of marketing approach they need and how I can get them the best results possible.
For clients that use my monthly services I send them a special questionnaire each month about what types of events they have planned or what they have scheduled for their business. This way we can adjust our marketing on LinkedIn to match their branding.
In each of these questionnaires, we advise our clients to provide as much information as possible. We tell them that failure to educate us will result in limited success. And, because we take the time to get to know our clients – we’re getting results.
Tip #2: You provide the content for the conversations and discussions your social media consultant is starting for you.
Most social media consultants post questions that are totally unrelated to their clients content or goals. Have you ever seen a posting like “what is your favorite summer activity”? I don’t know about you but I don’t really care about that, it has nothing to do with my business or my clients. You might generate more comments and discussions from a question like that, but it does not set you apart as a thought leader.
If you have your consultant just regurgitates content based on research from the web, how will that show prospects that you are any different from others in your field. You need to have content based on your own experience so that the reader sees you and not your consultant.
Your social media consultant should then create conversations based on the content and information you provide in your blog, articles you get published, your special reports, videos or squeeze pages.
Tip #3: If you do have your social media consultant create content for your discussions, it should be taken from your own work such as your books or transcripts for your teleseminars, webinars and speeches
I have social media content creation services, but we do not usually create content completely from scratch in social media campaigns.
If I generate content from scratch their social media discussions and comments will lack continuity. I cannot capture their style and tone; their “voice” cannot and should not be duplicated. If I simply take content from research on others in your similar field then I am not helping you become a thought leader. I am not showing your audience how you are different from your competition.
That’s why before we create social media content we view our clients bodies of work like their books or transcripts from their teleseminars, webinars and speeches. Then, we tweak this content and work our magic in turning this already created content into blog posts and articles that discussions can be created from.
Tip #4: You need to constantly reevaluate your goals and plans.
A social media consultant should help you test, tweak and create new strategies based on your current needs. For example, if you want to host a webinar or teleseminar, which will help you promote a boot camp then our LinkedIn marketing efforts will be aligned with that goal in mind. We would create a LinkedIn event marketing plan that gets your LinkedIn community involved, interacting with you and engaged so they will want to sign up. We’ll make sure you have a content marketing plan in place that will help us promote your event and get as much exposure as possible. And, we’d try to get you as much publicity for the event as possible.
Tip #5: Results and successes need to be shared with your social media consultant immediately.
You should regularly be sharing your clients’ results, your own business’s results and success stories with your consultant so he or she can use this to your advantage.
When you view our clients’ results blog, you will see that we not only brag about the results, but we also demonstrate our expertise by showing you why we received this success and how. This way we can share the success stories with our LinkedIn group and the other groups that we belong. This way we can create discussions and conversations based on the work we have done.
Your social media consultant should be creating a strategy to put your work in front of your targeted prospects’ eyes.
Need a social media strategy to get started with right away – email me for a free strategy session – kristina@getlinkedinhelp.com
Tip #6: Make sure you measure your return on investment.
I have heard people say that you cannot measure ROI on social media efforts. They say it is like measuring ROI on adding coffee in the waiting room of your office. However, anything you do in business, including adding coffee to your waiting room can be measured. In the case of the coffee you are measuring your clients comfort levels. Are they agitated or are they willing to stay and wait for you? Are you getting more return clients?
In social media you are measuring ROI by:
- The number of high-quality, highly-targeted connections you are making with prospects, referral sources and media professionals.
- Your LinkedIn group or your Facebook fan page conversion rates
- How engaged your social media community is with you
- How many new visitors to your blog and website you are getting from you efforts and conversations on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter
- The number of offline conversations and free strategy sessions you are giving as a direct result of your social media efforts.
- How much you have increased your client base, sales and clients.
So you need to evaluate your ROI so you and your social media consultant can take steps to improve it further.
Tip #7: You need to work with your social media consultant to generate a lead generation system that works for you and the rest of your team.
For example, if you are a sales organization then there has to be a system and coordination that will move prospects through your funnel starting with your social media efforts. You need to map out with your social media consultant how leads should be processed and what the next steps should be.
Tip #8: You need to be proactive in your social media efforts and responsive to your social media consultant.
As I mentioned, it’s your branding and reputation at stake. Using social media, you can become a thought leader and go-to expert in your industry. Or, you can look like everyone else and focus on getting more “friends” that do nothing for your business. If you want to become a thought leader, then you have to:
Take interest and be proactive in your social media efforts
- Create content that positions you as a thought leader – so your social media consultant can effectively put you in the limelight.
- Be responsive – When your social media consultant or manager gives you a lead to act upon – don’t let that lead fall through the cracks.
- Embrace your social media consultant and let them inside your business. Provide them with as much information as possible on a regular basis.
Now, if you are willing to follow these tips – and if you are ready to be proactive in your LinkedIn marketing efforts, then we want you as a LinkedIn marketing client. If you are interested: